The Battle of Droop Mountain occurred in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, on November 6, 1863, during the American Civil War. A Union brigade commanded by Brigadier General William W. Averell defeated a smaller Confederate force commanded by Brigadier General John Echols and Colonel William L. "Mudwall" Jackson. Confederate forces were driven from their breastworks on Droop Mountain, losing weapons and equipment. They escaped southward through Lewisburg, West Virginia; hours before a second Union force commanded by Brigadier General Alfred N. Duffié occupied the town.
The Battle of Droop Mountain was one of the largest engagements in West Virginia during the war. Although Averell had a sound victory at Droop Mountain, he did not achieve his objectives of eliminating the Confederate army in Lewisburg and damaging the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. The pro-Confederate community of Lewisburg was captured, but the Confederate army escaped and returned weeks later. No serious attempt was made to attack the railroad. After the expedition, Averell moved north to near the West Virginia–Maryland border, and Duffié moved back toward Charleston.
Some historians claim the battle ended organized Confederate resistance in West Virginia. Post battle, most of the region's fighting shifted east to the Shenandoah Valley and West Virginia's eastern panhandle region. Other historians believe that the battle was a tactical victory for Echols and Jackson, since Averell did not eliminate the Confederate army in Lewisburg; and more importantly, did not disturb the railroad.
On April 17, 1861, representatives of the Commonwealth of Virginia held the Virginia Secession Convention, and passed an Ordinance of Secession that declared secession from the United States. The ordinance was ratified by popular referendum on May 23, and Virginia later joined the Confederate States of America. Many people in the northwestern portion of the state preferred to remain loyal to the United States, and delegates from that portion of the state met in June at the Second Wheeling Convention. On June 19, they approved a plan to establish an alternative loyal state government that would be located in Wheeling. Although loyal Virginians approved their own statehood on October 24, 1861, West Virginia did not become a state in the United States until June 20, 1863. After the creation of West Virginia, regular Confederate Army soldiers still operated within the state. Residents of the new state were not all loyal to the union, and the state continued to be plagued by bushwhackers and Partisan rangers practicing guerrilla warfare. Historians estimate that residents of West Virginia provided 20,000 to 22,000 soldiers to each side in the American Civil War. Lewisburg, located in West Virginia near the border with Virginia, was one of the communities that supported the Confederacy. Five skirmishes occurred at Lewisburg during the war, plus a small battle in 1862 and the town's capture and brief occupation in 1863.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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